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History

Early Beginnings

The Business Development Center was launched in 1992 by the Pacific Asian Consortium in Employment (PACE), which has addressed the employment needs of the Asian Pacific Islander communities since 1976. In the aftermath of the Los Angeles riots, PACE was active in packaging SBA disaster loans for affected businesses. To this end, PACE received a federal grant from the Department of Health and Human Services's JOLI program (Job Opportunities for Low Income Individuals), serving as a launching pad for the PACE BDC.

Under this program, PACE BDC operated entrepreneurial training classes for welfare and other low-income recipients, producing a total of about 80 businesses and over 250 jobs in its first three years. As the JOLI program continued, PACE BDC's reputation for delivering down-to-earth business fundamentals training and TA grew as well.

After the Northridge Earthquake devastated a number of areas and small businesses in 1994, the BDC began a Disaster Business Assistance Program through grants from Kaiser Permanente and the City of Los Angeles . This program combined loan packaging and technical assistance to area businesses. During the three-year duration of the program, PACE BDC packaged over 500 loans for a total amount of approximately $10 million, squarely placing PACE BDC on the map.

The Middle Years

In 1996, PACE BDC received funding from the City for its Los Angeles Business Assistance Center (LABAC) and entrepreneurial training programs. Under this funding, the BDC operated within the Metro Central region, which contained mostly low-income census tracts, but enabled the BDC to serve both micro-businesses and larger companies until the City revamped its program in 2000.

At the same time, PACE BDC began operating many other programs as well, including an $80,000 subcontract with the University of Southern California's Business Expansion Network; the creation of the Asian Pacific Revolving Loan Fund of Los Angeles (APRLFLA) in consortium with the Asian Pacific Legal Center and the Korean Youth Community Center; and a grant from Merrill Lynch under their California Partnership program. The latter spurred the development of a two-year program that trained ethnic professionals how to teach small business to owners of their own ethnic group, and presented key concepts in both English and the students' native language.

From 2000, PACE BDC began operating programs increasingly targeted toward micro-enterprises, with an increased proportion of funding from micro-enterprise grantors. This included the Los Angeles Business Assistance Program (LABAP, a revised structure from the previous LABAC), the City's Welfare-to-Work program, the SBA's Project for Investment in Entrepreneurship program (PRIME), and the Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR) for refugee micro-enterprise development in the San Gabriel Valley .

PACE BDC Today

In 2004, PACE BDC received a five-year grant from the SBA Women's Business Center program, with no limitations on the size of the business served, enabling the BDC to again serve larger businesses. Complementing the SBA Women's Center was the creation of the Computer Learning Center via a $275,000 grant from Hewlett Packard in 2003, which consisted of 35 computers, printers and other equipment for staff and clients of the BDC.

In 2005, under the Wells Fargo Technical Assistance Initiative, PACE BDC continued its work in procurement assistance and providing procurement certifications (SBA 8A, MBE/WBE/DBE) to area businesses. As an additional service, the BDC also coached several entrepreneurs to pitch their services to large companies and government agencies at the SBA Business Matchmaking conference.

As of 2007, PACE BDC continues to operate and serve aspiring entrepreneurs, small business owners of low-moderate income, and refugees and asylees in Los Angeles under the funding of the LABAP, the SBA Women's Business Center , ORR, and JOLI programs.